You are a 100% correct on that, but if you look at the shear numbers, if i was going CDMA i would go VZW (87.4 million subscribers once the Alltel merger is complete) vs. 50.7 million for Sprint (which INCLUDES Nextel AND Boost - take out Nextel and Boost and they only have 22.2 million subscribers).

And I would probably have come out of the gate with GSM as you have access to over 2.46 BILLION subscribers worldwide.

Everyone knows the Pre has to be a HUGELY successful device for Palm to survive (and it appears by todays launch, they very well may be on the road to recovery). I am sure this will help pull some new subscribers over to Sprint, but sorry, if it was my company (we'd probably be bankrupt already ) I would make the bottom line about numbers, and the acces to the largest pool of subscribers.......

I don't disagree with anything you said - but, think about it. ATT has the Jesus phone and all the Blackberry's they can stock and all of the WM devices that mean anything. Palm has been a disappointment to everyone (carriers and clients) for the past 3 years, so I am sure ATT gave not positive reinforcements for Palm to jump on the GSM bandwagon for this device.

And Verizon, being the big-headed carrier they are with a new BB touch screen device coming to the market probably did not even return Ed's calls. And Verizon would have also slowed down the process due to their over-controlling nature. I think the one time Verizon got the jump on Sprint was for the 700w - and we know how that turned out.

A little history first: Palm used to release their phones as unlocked GSM phones first (Phone, 127, 360, 600, 650) but then it was a VERY long time (years) before the PRO appeared. Palm gave up on unlocked phones for quite a few models. Being in bed with ("rent a phone for the rest of the world") Sprint doesn't give me a good feeling about unlocked GSM "real soon".
As one of the comments in the PCWorld article states I also use pay-as-you-go SIM cards. I do not want to be locked into a phone company anywhere in the world. And yes, I will pay full price for the right phone.
My unlocked 650 is getting old and starting to fall apart. Waiting for "maybe sometime" or "get an account in Europe" doesn't cut it. I hate to say it but I think Palm is about to lose a loyal customer.

I live in Puerto Rico, which is a US territory in the Caribbean. And even though Palm didn't provide the GSM-Treo Pro in USA for sale with any GSM provider (only unlocked), they did made it available ("locked") eventually to Puerto Rico for GSM-provider Claro.

My guess is that Claro will probably have the Pre for sale here shortly after Palm makes available a GSM version. So maybe it will not be (if my guess is right) for European carriers only.

A little history first: Palm used to release their phones as unlocked GSM phones first (Phone, 127, 360, 600, 650) but then it was a VERY long time (years) before the PRO appeared. Palm gave up on unlocked phones for quite a few models. Being in bed with ("rent a phone for the rest of the world") Sprint doesn't give me a good feeling about unlocked GSM "real soon".
As one of the comments in the PCWorld article states I also use pay-as-you-go SIM cards. I do not want to be locked into a phone company anywhere in the world. And yes, I will pay full price for the right phone.
My unlocked 650 is getting old and starting to fall apart. Waiting for "maybe sometime" or "get an account in Europe" doesn't cut it. I hate to say it but I think Palm is about to lose a loyal customer.

Nice. I may end up buying a European phone, especially if Sprint requires a Simply Everything 2 year contract. That is $2400 right there before you even buy the phone. I believe it is illegal to sell a carrier-locked phone in Europe, and phone subsidies/contracts are not as popular over there, so it should be possible.

First, Palm will release a GSM version in the US after the exclusivity period with Sprint ends. As someone pointed out somewhere, it was 4 months with the Centro. Not sure what it will be with the Pre.

Second, if the GSM version becomes available in Europe, we might be able to buy it and use it on AT&T in the US. I guess that depends on the locked/unlocked thing, but in some countries, they only sell the unlocked versions. (At least I think --no hope--so.)

Don't jump ship. We've been patient for a long time. My 680 will last a few more months. The good news is that we have something awesome to look forward to owning.

Could not agree more!!! My 680 will certainly hold. But my envy of just about everyone else is still high and now that this thing is very close on the horizon.....I feel like I am driving a 1982 K car in a Prius kind of world. I am getting where I need to go but could really go for some style and wow.

You can't just make a GSM phone with 4 frequencies anymore, as in the US, AT&T and T-Mo have implemented 3G data differently - at the radio/hardware level as best I understand it.
Does anyone know what the 3G data standard in Europe is? Does it match ATT, TMo, or neither?

I'm past my contract w/ATT, but when we had Sprint -about 4-5 years ago - there were two HUGE issues:
1. Didn't work well at my home or business in KY(and was under 50% all along major route 1 through most of NJ too for that matter). Maybe more antennas have fixed that, not sure.
2. The WAY the technology failed to place and/or dropped calls - was extremely frustrating at a couple of levels. First, it would take 30-60 seconds for a call initiation to fail, and would similarly hang in limbo for this long on a dropped call. Secondly, it would do this "hang for 30-60 seconds" but then drop 98% of the time. With GSM, I might go silent for 0-20 seconds, but usually the call wouldn't drop, WAY less frustrating. Anyone know, is this still the case?

Pre will be UTMS/HSDPA which is the high data rate follow-on to GSM. I'm not sure how prevalent UTMS/HSDPA is in Europe but it is only present in select metropolitan cities in the US and not even in the suburbs of those areas. If there is sufficient build-out of UTMS/HSDPA in Europe, then I'd agree with jmg_P1OS21 that it would be very soon in Europe. If you were willing to pay the unlocked price and duties to import to the USA, then it would be a very nice device in the states where AT&T UTMS/HSDPA service is available. My guess is that this will fall back to GSM but you wouldn't be able to use any of the web applications and the phone at the same time on GSM. (My guess is that UTMS/HSDPA is probably 1-2 years out in the states.)

I am willing to pay to import the phone, but as usual, what BANDS will it use...

I thought "UTMS/HSDPA" was the "band". I think this will drop down to GSM (but maybe you should research that yourself as I really don't need to know myself. Just trying to help point you in the right direction.)

Regarding being able to talk and use the data connection on GSM, I was wrong. People say that's already possible.